Why did I decide to start the web page?
I'm a new IB student in the MYP, for my personal project I decided to create my own web page about the impact sunscreens have on health and the environment
In the covid-19 pandemic, while we were all in quarantine in our home, I used to spend many hours daily on social media. When I saw girls' recommendations of their skincare and the way they were amazed with it, that is how they inspired me to start mine. For the next few months, I researched about these products, the way of use, the amount you have to apply, the best brands, the age recommendation, what were the ones with best effectivity, and the ones that didn't work. In addition, frequently they used to talk about the importance of sunscreens on your daily skincare routine since it’s the only product that can protect your skin from UV radiation not only from the sunlight but blue light to which we are exposed by our technological screens. After finding out this, I realize the amount of hours I spend daily exposed to UV radiation, such as to sunlight while training volleyball or to blue light whenever I have to use my phone, consequently, I started using sunscreen every single day.
One day, I was watching tik tok, when suddenly on my for you page a girl was warning us from the danger of sunscreens. At first, I thought she was the kind of person that tries to device people with fake news of a topic with a huge impact, in order to have more views and followers. But then she starts explaining that 75 percent of sunscreens aren’t safe for us, all of the toxic substances in it are endocrine disruptors, in other words, it causes a hormonal imbalance above all with estrogens, a carcinogen hormone.
Then I panicked, how was it possible? The product I had been using for months, which had to fulfill the objective of protecting my skin, was actually harming my health. These facts, supported by organizations such as the breast cancer organization, make me sure this information is reliable and after this, I decided to start researching on my own. I founded scientific investigations that not only confirm the content of the first source but give us more facts about fifteen substances that also damage our health.
I never expected what came afterwards, researching deeply I found that these toxic substances that chemical sunscreens contain are one of the factors that are harming coral reefs since more than a half all over the world are bleaching. It means that coral reefs turn completely white, they aren’t dead but they are more likely to be. Both sunscreens and medicine organizations tell us to be careful when choosing our sunscreen for ecology and our own good.
Therefore, I reflect. What can I do to make known the reality of sunscreens? Accordingly, I decided to make people aware of chemical sunscreens and eco-friendly alternatives that we can replace to save the environment and ourselves.